UNDP

About the Company

Background: UNDP Global Mission Statement: The UNDP is a global development network, an agency that facilitates progress and links countries with expertise , experience and tools to help people create a better life. UNDP is on the ground in about 170 countries and territories, working with national counterparts on solutions to global and national development challenges. UNDP Afghanistan Mission Statement: UNDP supports the stabilization, state-building, governance and growth goals of Afghanistan. UNDP, in partnership with the Government, the United Nations system, the donor community and other development stakeholders, helps countries to achieve sustainable development by eradicating poverty in all its Forms and dimensions, driving systemic changes for sustainable growth and building resilience to crises and shocks. In Afghanistan, a country in war, the UNDP is working on development and recovery options that minimize vulnerability and contribute to a development perspective to improve humanitarian and peace-building responses. Organizational Context: The UNDP is committed to supporting and helping the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GoIRA) to achieve its main goals of self-reliance and stability. The task of transitioning from war to a peace economy. To achieve these objectives, the Government has established a detailed set of national priorities within the Afghanistan National Framework for Peace and Development (ANPDF). To achieve the Agenda 2030, the Government has also developed a set of 16 Afghan Sustainable Development Goals (A-SDGs) and ten national priority programs (NPPs) to place the country on a path towards sustainable development. Progress towards self-reliance and peace across the country will be guided and measured by the targets and indicators described in each of these frameworks. In support of the Government’s efforts to adopt the ANPDF, the NPPs and the A-SDGs, the UNDP provides a special and highly integrated sustainable development model focused mainly on its conventional strengths Three primary areas: Promoting Human Development to improve human wellbeing, resilience and support environmental sustainability; Providing technical expertise in the use of a Multi-Dimensional Poverty approach to reduce vulnerabilities, inequalities and exclusions; Promoting Human Rights to ensure a fair distribution of development opportunities and benefits in social, political, economic and environmental dimensions. In addition, UNDP now has the Mandate to support SDG Integration to ensure faster progress on sustainable development and can offer support in four areas, (1) Integrated policy and  programming solutions, (2) SDG metrics, data and analysis using state-of-the-art tools for modelling and forecasting, (3) Knowledge and innovation and (4) SDG Financing services to help countries identify innovative ways to expand public and private contributions to reach the 2030 agenda. Lastly, the COVID-19 pandemic has also highlighted an urgent need to adopt a Systems Approach that is orientated towards building Resilience to future shocks through continuously reviewed scenario analyses. However, to make significant progress on the many highly complex development issues that face the country will require new ways of thinking, new skills and a much more collaborative and inclusive approach. UNDP will need to: Attract the right staff: New staff need to be engaged who have the sort of development policy expertise required to tackle the many highly complex development issues facing the country. As the COVID-19 crisis has clearly shown, these staff will need to be able to understand the interconnections and interrelationships between different issues and be able to incorporate multiple-perspectives in the approaches developed. For example, to move people out of multi-dimensional poverty, a systemic understanding of the interplay between socio-economic factors, regional differences, and shifts in the political economy will be needed; Provide high-quality policy analysis: To ensure that interventions selected are those most likely to have the greatest national-level impact, UNDP’s economic modelling team will carry out economic analyses of the options available to help build greater trust in Government, reduce the economic impact of COVID-19 and help to forge a sustainable peace; Develop new modes of collaboration: UNDP’s new way of doing business will also involve leveraging a wider range of expertise and resources by working across organizations through a Government-led platform approach. Country Support Platforms harness collective intelligence and action to benefit communities and people at a greater scale, more quickly, making the best use of resources. This job description is a direct response to these needs and UNDP’s improved business model. It reflects a new office structure that has recently been put in place to support the vision expressed in an emerging portfolio of ten new Country Office (CO) programmes and to facilitate a more collaborative approach to work across the office and with external partners. This structure is also designed to provide the foundation for a new emphasis on sub-national level work, support higher delivery rates, and to transform UNDP into a learning organization and ‘fit-for-purpose’ to deliver on Agenda 2030 which in turn will support national staff and institutional capacity development. The design of UNDP’s new programme portfolio is intended to support progress towards sustainable development and sustainable peace. It focuses on economic transformation, sustainable energy, social protection, environment and climate change, and governance issues such as anti-corruption, local government, justice and security sector reform, peace and reconciliation. The design of each of these programmes is based on the UN’s three core principles of human rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment, and environmental sustainability and is guided by the UNDP Strategic Plan (2018-2021). Taken together and implemented in an integrated way through a platform approach, the proposed programmes will contribute towards achieving Peace, Prosperity and Sustainability in Afghanistan. Each of these themes is reflected in the new organizational structure for the CO. In this context, the Economist is an integral part of the  SDG Integration and Policy  Lab, housing UNDP’s economic modeling, R&D, and innovation expertise as well as a reinvigorated Development Effectiveness Team, which will continue the work of the SPRU team and ensure closer integration with the ground-level work of programmes and projects. The structure of the programme portfolios will follow the design of UNDP’s CPD and ongoing work to develop a renewed programme strategy.